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England (Counties as in 1851-1901) => Cornwall => England => Cornwall Lookup Requests => Topic started by: Vivienne Luke on Tuesday 03 December 13 09:45 GMT (UK)
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Hello,
I am looking for help to try and identify the real identity of my
great grandfather who called himself John KEMPTHORNE. He appears for
the first time in the 1881 census, living in Cornwall at Stoketon
Farm, St Stephens as an unmarried farm servant aged 38, birthplace
Camborne. In 1891 he is married to my great grandmother, Anne BICKLE
(nee ELLACOTT) and my grandfather, William, and is Licensed Victualler
of the Notter Bridge Sportsman's Arms, which was previously owned by
Anne and her first husband. John claimed to be 50 and born in Newlyn
East. In 1901, he has moved with his family to Saltash, claiming to be
from East Newlyn, likewise in 1911. He died in 1925 in the workhouse
in Saltash, despite his son and his family living close by and being
potentially able to support him. His marriage certificate does not
name his father and gives nothing helpful to identify him.
Prior to 1881, I can find no record of his existence. I have checked
every source I can think of and followed every John Kempthorne and
Thomas Kempthorne who could be him (his death certificate named him as
John Thomas Kempthorne) with no success. I can find no link for him
with Newlyn East or anywhere else. For some time I followed links only
to find I was wrong.
Is there any answer to this conundrum or am I left with an ancestor
who was trying to hide a past and who covered his traces very well.
There are no family stories to explain the mystery. (I was born in
Cornwall myself, but live in Tasmania now.)
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Hi Vivienne and welcome to Rootschat.
Have you discounted the 1842 baptism in Sithney to James & Anne on the Cornwall OPC site?
http://www.cornwall-opc-database.org/search-database/more-info/?t=baptisms&id=3551605
Do the witnesses at the wedding provide any clues? John Clough Kinsman & Elizabeth Peard?
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Hi Miriamkinga,
Yes, the John Kempthorne born in Sithney lived his life in Devon. I did at first think this was mine, until I found his marriage and post 1881 census records. I can't find any link with the witnesses either. All my mother's memories were of branches of her mother's family. Thanks for the suggestion though, it was nice to get a reply! I need a magic wand on this one :-\
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Hi Vivienne
Have you ruled out Thomas KEMPTHORNE baptised Newlyn East on 12 Jul 1840 to Mark & Betsey?
He appears with his family in the 1841 and 1851 census records in Newlyn East (his father was an agricultural labourer) and in 1861 he was resident in nearby Crantock and gave his occupation as farm servant. I can't yet see any trace of him in the 1871 census though.
Phil
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Hi Phil,
Yes, I have ruled out Thomas Kempthorne as he migrated to New Zealand - it was another lead with a dead end! Thanks for your reply though.
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deleted, wrong Family after more research :-[
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The longer I work on this search, the more it seems that John Kempthorne is an invented name. Many things point to this - his absence before 1881, no birth/baptism record, no family stories about his background, the fact that his family put him in the workhouse to die while they took care of his wife and other family members until they died, no siblings or other family members known, his marriage as a relatively older man. I can accept this, but just don't know where to start to try and find any information about him.
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I come not to give help, but maybe to give hope!
I'm going to retell a tale I told elsewhere here recently, about how I discovered who my gr-grfather really was. He came from Cornwall and he was born around 1850 ... but you can't have him. ;)
I'd be sure that your fellow's Kempthorne name came from somewhere other than his birth certificate. There are certain common possibilities, of two varieties:
- mother was not married, he was registered under her name
- mother was married, he was registered under her husband's surname
In either case, father was actually a Kempthorne and knowing this, he adopted his surname
- mother (re)married or partnered with someone, he adopted stepfather's surname
- he changed his name as an adult to avoid something: military desertion, debts, wife and kids, ...
(this, I learned from the son of my mum's cousin who knew but had no idea his name was fake, long after I figured out who he really was, was the case for my gr-grfather: abandoned the military in India after 5 years rather than be sent to Afghanistan, which fit precisely between his first identity's wife's death in 1873 and the beginning of the Anglo-Afghan war in 1878.)
People generally did not stray too far from their truth (as my gr-grfather's tale shows), so things like given name, age and reported place of birth are likely to be fairly reliable. Unfortunately, your fellow was a John. Mine had the good grace to have two multisyllabic trendy Victorian names.
Anyhow, herewith my tale (in very abridged form, since it took years to collect all the bits of substantiating evidence, and I've omitted most of it here). And after all this, I still don't know where his fake surname came from!! But I will figure it out or die trying. ;)
I'm going to take a poke at your John, since I've made a bit of a specialty of name-shifters, being a self-taught expert after cutting my teeth on those people! Oh, and my own fun bit is that I finally bit the bullet and went for YDNA testing, and while I didn't expect a match with the rare fake surname, I did expect one with the common as dirt real surname, if my man was really a son of his official father. I got a match alright, a very close one ... with a completely different surname from the same area of Cornwall. And the search resumes ...
But if you have a male-line descendant from your John, you should consider YDNA testing. I was enormously lucky that one person from the well-researched clan in question, with whom my gr-grfather's descendant matches, had done the testing; otherwise I'd be none the wiser. Possibly even a Family Finder test, if you don't have a direct male-line descendant, would produce some ideas.
So ... I discovered, immediately upon first researching him, that my gr-grfather did not exist before his 1883 marriage; he had sprung from nowhere, with two distinctive given names and very unusual surname. I did not know where he was born, but I knew his (approx) year of birth.
Unfortunately for me, we knew that after he married in England 1883, he was in Australia for the 1891 English census, and I could not find him in 1901 for love nor money, to at least find what age and place of birth he gave. He then immigrated here to Canada.
Let's say their names were, for illustration:
My gr-grfather Edward Arthur Moonwalk.
His daughter Alice London Moonwalk.
His father Fiscus Moonwalk.
I got an early clue: when searching for the birth of a daughter of his that we had just learned died in infancy, Alice Moonwalk, I found that she was Alice London Moonwalk -- and I found the marriage of a person a generation before with the identical name, otherwise unique in recorded history. No idea how they were related, but they had to be. And when I searched for someone with the same given names as my gr-grfather born around the same time, I found an Edward Arthur Smith, let's say (the surname was nearly as common!).
Eventually, I found the family that matched all these clues, in the 1861 census (plus certificates): Edward Arthur Smith, with a sister named Alice London Smith and a father named Fiscus Smith. Born in Cornwall. And when I finally found my gr-parents in London in 1901 (his surname bizarrely mistranscribed at two different sites), he gave the same place in Cornwall, for his place of birth. So both he and his sister (that we had never heard of) had adopted the same fake surname, and both had assigned it to their father when they married, while retaining the father's real given name. Oh, the clincher was when I finally found that the sister's real name at birth was actually Alice London Moonwalk Smith. Why Moonwalk -- and especially how she came to have Moonwalk as a middle name -- I have yet to find out.
A big stroke of luck I had, when it comes to people changing names, was that theirs were distinctive and they retained enough of them, and their birth details, to make them identifiable. And while the little info I did have to start with was even less than you have -- his given names and approx date of birth -- finding the sister gave me a triangulation point you don't have.
Like me, you are looking for someone who looks like your person. And then you see whether that person can't be accounted for after a certain point, the point where that person hypothetically became your person. And sadly, all the work you have done in that process has served only to eliminate the possibles ... but where there's life ... !
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Janey that's so interesting and clever ;D
Vivienne I wouldn't assume that his family "put him in the workhouse to die" while caring for other family members. The workhouse was also used as a hospital ansd perhaps they were unable to care for him at home.
Good luck with your search :)
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I agree that the workhouse doesn't necessarily indicate neglect or hostility. Illness or disability, short or long term, is at least equally possible.
I have two grx2 grfathers who died in the workhouse (not the Moonwalk family!) and in at least one case I am sure that must have been the reason as there is no indication of family estrangement. In the other, I just don't know; in the workhouse in his birth parish in Wiltshire in 1851, present for his second wife's death in Scotland! in 1854, back in the workhouse in 1861, died there later that decade. Meanwhile, only known child, born in Bristol, prospered mightily in Kent, where he was as a young man in 1841 when the father was in Scotland. The things these ancestors got up to, one just shakes one's head sometimes. I haven't moved around that much in my own life.
I'll tell you, finding those Smith/Moonwalk people consumed a lot of my life for some time! But I kept running into those strokes of luck, being able to match up all sorts of details between Smiths and Moonwalks -- each Edward with the other, and each Alice with the other, and in fact Edward's mother had even adopted the fake name, when I found them together in 1881! -- and between one pair of Edward and Alice and the other.
The one thing I have not been able to do, myself, is find where the Moonwalk name came from. And of course, you just know, the tale Edward told was of blue blood. Yes, there is a very senior line of peers with the name, and he claimed to be the son of the black sheep younger brother of the one at the time in question. And yea it transpired that said peer did have an unmarried younger brother, in the Coldstream Guards, who did die in the Crimea mere weeks before the birth of Alice London Moonwalk Smith ...
Vivienne just hasn't had one bit of luck herself, nothing to tie John to a previous John, or to any other person anywhere.
I poked at the John Thomas and Thomas John births in the relevant areas at the relevant time a bit, and traced each forward and found them all accounted for, I'm pretty sure. Firefox crashed before I was quite finished, maybe, and then I was flooded with work and had to leave off.
If there were any connection could be made, even just geographically, with a Kempthorne in this tale ... But there too, I have striven and failed, so far.
In Newlyn there is only that family of Kempthornes that has been investigated: Mark, Betsy and children.
(Believe it or not, Newlyn is the stomping grounds of the family of what seems to be my Smith/Moonwalks' paternal grandmother ... several of them there in 1841 ... maybe we're cousins ...)
I wonder what of son Mark in that household? or did the whole lot of them go to New Zealand?
1861, Mark Kempthorne was a general servant in Phillack.
1871 he was a private on the Resistance off Rock Ferry, Cheshire.
(okay, believe it or not, a decade later, the decade-younger Edward Moonwalk and mother were living, oh, 2 miles from Rock Ferry)
The navy doesn't have privates, does it? Ah. Royal Marines.
Mark's real dob was 1838. In 1861 he was aged 19; in 1871, aged 26, and born in Truro.
But there are no spare Mark Kempthornes born c1845 in Truro, so that must be him.
There's no record of him after that. He could well have gone off somewhere as well, or been killed in some action or other.
But if he'd left the military and gone home ... being John rather than Mark might have worked for him ...
Older brother James also seems to disappear after 1861.
Here's an interesting tidbit, though. Mark Kempthorne, the father in that household, had alternate surnames.
https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.1.1/NPNS-W6T
Name: Mark Dennis Or Kempthorne
Gender: Male
Christening Date: 16 Feb 1806
Christening Place: Saint Endellion, Cornwall
Father's Name: William Dennis Or Kempthorne
Mother's Name: Charity
Indexing Project (Batch) Number: P00237-1
also here, Dennis alias Kempthorne:
http://www.cornwall-opc-database.org/search-database/more-info/?t=baptisms&id=2635974
The mother is shown as Charity Nicholls on some baptisms. William married as William Kempthorne Dennis in 1796:
http://www.cornwall-opc-database.org/search-database/more-info/?t=marriages&id=294719
I haven't thought how it might work yet - did one or more of the Dennis/Kempthorne children of William and Charity use the Dennis surname? - but it's something to think about ...
For one set of twins (Mark and Martha 1806) the surname is Dennis alias Kempthorne.
For the other set (Rebecca and Henry 1808) the surname is Dennis and the parents are "William and Charity Kempthorne Dennis".
A William Dennis base child of Ann was baptised in St Breward in 1774. Was his father a Kempthorne? Thomas Kempthorne married Alice Dennis in St Breward in 1765. Alice 1739 and Anne 1747 were sisters ...
It's certainly reaching back, but could John X have been a son of one of the children of William and Charity, and have known that his grandfather was really Thomas Kempthorne?
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Service record for Mark Kempthorne, cannot be downloaded but can be ordered from the NA:
http://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/SearchUI/Details?uri=C10085101 (http://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/SearchUI/Details?uri=C10085101)
Martin
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Hi Janey, MiriamKinga and crimea1854,
So much food for thought. Janey, what an amazing story of your search and finding!
With regard to the Dennis/Kempthorne people, I have looked at this but can't find a connection that I can follow which might be mine.
I have been tested with 23andMe as has my brother, he has since died, but I do have his raw data. How did you follow up the testing and find the common thread?
I will return to Mark Kempthorne et al and see if I can find anything likely. I had given up this connection.
There was a John Daw born illegitimately in East Newlyn at around the right time, who was working with James Kempthorne at a farm in 1851. I've lost him after that.
crimea1854, I will oder the service record for MK, just on the off chance.
I'm not sure whether him using John Thomas has any significance or whether this was made up also.
Miriam, I realise that the workhouse also functioned as a hospital, but there definitely was some form of estrangement as my mother remembered from her childhood that "he wasn't liked". Interestingly, there are no known relatives of him - his family was never mentioned, which speaks to me of hiding something.
Anyway, thanks very much to you all and if you think of anything else please let me know.
In gratitude. Vivienne
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The stories have so many similarities! My mum's cousins (grandchildren of "Edward Arthur Moonwalk") are mostly deceased now, but one of their children has told me that one of the grandchildren now in his mid-80s and living in California doesn't want to talk about EAM, as he was an embarrassment to that generation when he was an old man. He spent his older years "visiting" his children, this would be in the 1930s when he'd been widowed in 1910, and because he was a strange dapper little man, always with his walking stick, and illiterate, I have just learned, their children didn't like being around him. One deceased granddaughter, older than my mum, was his confidante in her teens. She knew of the nightmares he still had of the old Queen coming after him for his desertion (1878, remember), and the little case in which he carried all his "papers" with him at all times, which he promised her when he died. Unfortunately, he died at the home of another son, whose wife took one look at the contents of the case and burned it all in the backyard.
He too never talked of any family, except a tale I heard from my mum's brother after I had already worked all this out: that his first family all "died of a plague". All of the death certs I could identify and got after hearing that -- for his brother, his first wife, and his daughter from the first marriage and sister's daughter, both as very young women -- showed they died of tuberculosis (another clincher for my theory). But as far as names, let alone details: none, except for the made-up name of his father. The sister I first discovered was actually an actress in her teens (I found a carte de visite photograph on line!!) and married a very wealthy young man, I think through the father's mining connections ... while my gr-grfather was working on the docks in Poplar ... but he had never spoken a word of her that anyone recalled hearing, although he named that daughter for her. He and his wife gave their numerous children middle names that came from their own siblings (as I could see once I discovered who the previous identity's siblings were), but he named none for his parents.
I had my male rellie tested with FTDNA. My understanding is that for finding genealogical connections, it may be better than 23andme. FTDNA notifies you of matches, and as long as they have not gone private, you get contact info. That's how I found the one match I've got for that one.
You're having to do autosomal because you don't have a male-line descendant (your mum is the link, like mine)? If you do have a male-line descendant -- a son of a son (of a son) of John -- that is the person to test. You'll only get a match if someone who matches has tested, of course ;)
My theory was that with all the Cornish emigration, particularly in connection with mining, and the common as dirt surname my man was born with, I would get a match somewhere among the hundreds of people in the FTDNA project for that name -- since most are in the US with no knowledge of their original English source. But not a single sausage. My theory was borne out, though: the match I did get, with the third surname, is with someone whose family was associated with copper mining in the St Austell area for generations, whose grandfather emigrated to a copper mining area in the US c1850 (the match himself died this fall at a very old age). So despite the surname mismatch, the match is obviously sound. That project itself has only a half-dozen participants, which break down into three distinct groups (Cornwall, Devon and Gloucestershire, it seems). Me and my match (our male rellies) are the only ones in our subgroup.
What you really need is for a pedigreed Kempthorne to test, so you can rule that line in or out. At GenesReunited, for instance, there are several people with the children of Mark and Betsy in their trees. (Someone also has John 1841, would it be someone you know?) And trees at Ancestry/Mundia have Mark 1804, for example. Mind you, whether they were "real" Kempthornes or not is an open question, given the Dennis element -- the trees I'm looking at either don't show Mark's father or just say William Kempthorne. One does show descendants from son James via two marriages, for example. But you might find a more reliably Kempthorne descendant to test.
I certainly recommend it. There I was trying to trace a James "Smith" born sometime before 1800 in either Cornwall or Devon (gr-grf Moonwalk's paternal grandfather, from his father's baptism record in Devon), and trying to decide whether to bite the bullet and ask the current peer (to whom I was introduced by email through a mutual acquaintance at GenesReunited who spotted the surname in my tree!) to spit on a stick for me, and what do I find but the DNA says neither one. The surname match is actually the surname of gr-grf Moonwalk's paternal grandmother as I had worked it out long before. Which doesn't count, but is an interesting connection.
cont'd
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To get anything out of the autosomal DNA testing, I believe you would have to have cousins on both sides of your family tested, to try to identify which bits are coming from where and exclude the bits from the non-Kempthorne side, and see whether there is a match for the bit coming from John. That can be a hugely complicated undertaking, as I understand it. But having a pedigreed Kempthorne test might do the ruling in/out, I'm not sure. My understanding so far is pretty much limited to YDNA, since it was the particular gr-grf's name (and thus family) that was (and still is) the mystery to be solved and I had the necessary male-line descendant.
Anyhow anyhow, John Daw looks possibly interesting. Except for his name, of course. No shortage of them ... Daw alias Benny by birth -- so Benny was the father, or vice versa? Not sure how that works. Mary Daw was the mother I guess, from daughter Jane's baptism 1840. JD was slightly older than your John, but shaving a few years off would not be unexpected. Have you found him/them in 1841? I can't by either name. Aha, Jane Dawe aged 2 died in Dec 1840 in the St Columb Union House; probably the daughter. And aha, Mary Dawe aged 40 died in Newlyn East on the same day as Jane was baptised, 4 Mar 1840. So by the 1841 John was on his own. ... There is a John Benny in the 1841 but he is accounted for by an 1837 baptism with those parents ... There are a couple of people at GR with John Dawe 1837 East Newlyn in their trees who might know his fate! Ah, trees at Ancestry/Mundia show no ancestors, but have him married to Lydia Hocking in 1867 with numerous children, and accounted for up to 1911, and yes, I see him in 1881 and 1911 e.g., an ag lab in Newlyn.
I'm very useful for ruling people out ........... ;)
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Well here I am again, still searching for that lost g grandfather. Janey you have been so helpful. However, I have followed up the Dennis line with no success. My cousin Joyce is going to chase up a male cousin Kempthorne to try and get a YDNA test done. No guarantee that he will agree though. I can't find Mark K after 1871 and Find My Past military records are no help. James K also disappears. A browse through FindMyPast emigration records was unsuccessful in finding either. Help.......
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Darn, you just missed the pre-New Year sale! A couple of words of advice on YDNA -- go straight for 67 markers. I started with 37, and the thing is that if and when that comes up with any kind of matches, you just have to upgrade/refine anyway to get an idea of whether they're meaningful.
As far as persuading your test subject ;) -- be like me, promise to be completely tight-lipped about everything.
My testee has a pseudonym on the account (which I administer) that amounts to "Mr Y Z". When you fill out the order form, don't put his name on it; have it delivered to you, and then change your name to the "Y Z" option you choose for your cousin when the test is submitted. The surname I have assigned to my testee's ancestor does not connect the testee to anyone in the records (for ancestral surname, I use the one the DNA match is with, i.e. neither Moonwalk nor Smith). For instance, you might not want to attach the surname Kempthorne to anything associated with the testing; in my other case, the testee's surname is actually the ancestral name, but it shows in his profile only as "X*, c1740, Wiltshire, England" where X is the initial of the name.
So what it comes down to is that your cousin could be "Mr. X K", and his most distant ancestor "K*, c1840, Cornwall, England". And then after you have received the test kit, you go in and remove your mailing address and telephone number from your account, just on principle, because volunteer project administrators have access to that information (and believe me, I am not happy about that). And I have a dedicated anonymous Gmail account for correspondence with project administrators and matches. And I do not disclose any surname info even to people who contact me or whom I contact about possible matches, unless and until an actual connection is established (which has happened only in this one case so far, counting both my testees).
And you promise your cousin all that, and that his own identity will absolutely never be revealed, because it is of no relevance -- all that needs to be known about him is that he is a male-line descendant, X number of generations from "Mr. X K", and you are administering the account, and your name and relationship also do not have to be disclosed to anyone. That's how I treat my testees. I don't state my own relationship to them (brother, uncle, cousin, father, whatever) to anyone, only that they are male-line descendants, X number of generations from an ancestor born c1850 or c1740.
That's a bit paranoid sounding, I'm sure. But I just don't put personal info on line or disclose it to people by default, and when I promise confidentiality, I mean it! I'd be happy to answer anything that might set your cousin's mind at rest about it all.
On the bright side, I uploaded my other kit's YDNA marker values to Ancestry (all completely anonymously again), and found a perfect match who had tested there. Which proves that both I and the other grx2 grandchild of my grx2 grandfather, who had contacted me via my census notes at Ancestry a couple of years ago and I recognized as the testee in that case, and our fathers and grandfathers, really are "legitimate". Hurray. ;) Since I think that grx2 grandfather was the last of his line, until he went forth and multiplied, that's probably about all the news I'll get there.
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Thanks Janey,
I'll forward your advice on to my cousin who is going to approach the male in question. I have ordered the full MDNA myself, but of course that won't help. I already have 23 and Me, but they don't do the full sequence, so I thought that I would try FamilyTreeDNA. My brother has agreed to be tested also. You are very thorough. If any other lightbulbs come on, please let me know as I am plum out of ideas myself.
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For autosomal, the person I'm working with on the project for surname #3 of the Smith-Moonwalk crowd recommends 23andMe as more thorough than FTDNA -- more bang for the buck.
However, I would say that depends on what the goal is. If it is to find related people, 23andMe is not the way to go, as there is a much less effective matching procedure, and reportedly people contacted about matches are generally not very responsive -- presumably because their intent in doing the testing was not to find matches.
Since you have a male-line descendant, YDNA is what you want, and I'd say FTDNA is where to do it. You can upload your own results to Ancestry (no fee, even if you are just a non-paying user - and even if you are a paying user, make a separate free anonymous account there for this) and Ysearch as well.
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By the way, I just did a search at Ysearch for the name Kempthorne, and it turns up in one pedigree, the testee's grx3 grandmother in paternal line (wife of grx3 grandfather in his surname line): Jane Kempthorne 1807 Breage. That person is in a tree at Ancestry/Mundia shown as born 1806; I don't see a baptism or marriage at the OPC site. But that might bode well for autosomal matches if there's any Kempthorne in you! or help to disprove the thesis, if there is no match. ;)
Also, that's one reason to go for the oldest testee you can get - to reduce the number of generations to most recent common ancestor, and increase the chance of an autosomal DNA match. If your cousin's dad is living, he would be the best pick.
edit, just for info - 1851 shows Jane living in Breage but born in Sithney, so probably daughter of James and Jane, 1802:
http://www.cornwall-opc-database.org/search-database/more-info/?t=baptisms&id=3548773
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Hi Janey,
Unfortunately, the male in question is the oldest living supposed K descendant. His dad died some years ago. Still, it will be a start if it goes ahead. Let's hope something comes up to help us. This g gfather definitely did not want to be found!!!!
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Hi Janey,
A quick question: re your mention of Smiths in Liverpool when referring to Mark K in the army. When going through her mum's things, my cousin found photos/addresses referring to some Smiths in the Liverpool area. We have no idea of the connection ourselves. There was a Mr and Mrs Smith with a daughter Dorothy. Also the address of a Gwen Smith at 5 Stanley Gardens, Orral Park, Liverpool. Also a Florence Smith with two children: Cyril and Fernley(?).
A long shot I know, but worth a try to see if any of the names are familiar to you.
Vivienne
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Oh, so now I'm to investigate Smiths in Liverpool? What have I ever done to you!? ;)
And I'm struggling to find where I mentioned Smiths in Liverpool ...
(Remember, "Smith" in my own case was just a stand-in invented for the actual supposed surname, which was only one step less common than that.)
Could be interesting, at least they aren't John and Mary.
Fernley was a briefly popular name for Smiths 1890-1920ish -- 14 of them, almost all in Plymouth / Devonport / East Stonehouse (Norfolk for the others). So your Smiths do seem like transplants.
Any idea of the timing of those letters?
Most of the Fernleys died in childhood though.
1892-1893
1894-1898
1895-1896 (Norfolk)
1902-1902
1911-1911
1907-1912 (he is the one in the 1911 census)
1915-1915
that leaves
Fernley H 1909 Blything married 1940 Surrey SW, I don't see a death
Fernley R 1922 Devonport married 1950 Middlesex, died 1999 Dorset
Fernley 1922 Devonport, died 1983 Plymouth
and births in Plymouth in 1951 and 1955; both married in the same area.
Looking for siblings would be monumental; even with unusual surnames, we're still looking at Smith.
but o m g, I tried the most unusual surname and lo, there is a brother Cyril, 1919 Devonport, for the 1922 Fernley who died in 1999. Cyril Claude Smith died 1986 Plymouth. There look to have been others elsewhere with the same surnames ... amazing, with a name like Wilbraham, there are 15 marriages to Smith after 1916 even. But here is ours:
Fanny C Wilbraham + Reginald C Smith, 1914 Devonport.
Except you said Florence. Could she have been one of those modern young women who tarted up her name from the olde fashioned one she was given?
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Oops, sorry Janey! Thanks for the reply. I did get confused as you had Smith as one of your ancestral names... You have amazing searching skills and found a lot of information very quickly. We will probably never know the connection with our family. I'll pass the info on to my cousin. I think we can dismiss any connection of the Smiths to Mark K. The Mark and James K remain a mystery as to where they went. Crossing fingers for the dna - but it will be some time before that happens. Thanks again.
Vivienne
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Always up for a good Smith.
At the address 5 Stanley Gardens, AINtree exchange in the Liverpool area telephone directory, 1946-1953, was Miss SM Smith.
There. Aren't you glad you asked? ;)
There are two marriages in Liverpool that could account for the disappearance of that listing after 1953; I won't put details here as that is fairly recent - a Sheila in 1952 and a Sarah in 1953.
Did a bit of poking into the Reginald Smith + Fanny Wilbraham line but nothing sprang into view; just family friends perhaps. Reginald Claude Smith 1885 died in 1947 in Plymouth, perhaps his wife and children relocated after that ... although a Fanny C Smith 1893 died in Plymouth 1948. If your letters predate those dates, perhaps they were in Liverpool during the war ...
(You're right, I have a grx3 grmother Smith in Notts in my sig line ... and there's also a Smith somewhere in the tree in Cornwall a generation or two farther back. Into each tree a little Smith must fall, I think!)
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Hi Janey,
A voice from the past who you had hoped had disappeared. Returning to the search I had given up on, I decided to try another tack. I discovered that Mark Kempthorne from East Newlyn, who joined the Royal Marines in 1867 demobbed in 1879. He then disappears. His nephews emigrate to NZ along with his brother and other family members. No sight of him. Coincidently, John Kempthorne appears in St Germans (across the river from Plymouth, where Mark would have been delisted). The right age (approx), still a bachelor. He marries my g grandmother, and in three census returns 1891, 1901 and 1911, lists his birth place as East Newlyn (or something approximating that). Mark's parents are dead and his family spread out. He is in the 1861 census as a servant and is from a family of agricultural labourers, he resumes life as an agric labourer in 1881. I can't help thinking that my "John" and Mark are the same person. John appears at the same time that Mark disappears. John does not appear to exist before the 1881 census.
I have ordered Mark's service record from the Royal Archives.
Since you have been so insightful in the past, I am wondering if there is any way I can prove my suspicions? My cousin is still waiting to get our male Y person to do the Family Tree DNA Y test. Hopefully, later this year.
I'd appreciate the benefit of your wisdom! :D
Vivienne
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Hi,
In my research I have just found your request about your John Kempthorne from a few years ago.I am Rosalind Steed and my ancestors actually lived and ran the Sportsmans Arms Inn at Notterbridge by the river for 20 years that you mention that your relative did.William Steed is my ancestor and with his wife Anne Steed[nee Jane] were the landlords of this Inn from 1860-1881.They lived there with nine children and a lodger and a servant for 20 years.Later going to Torquay in Devon.There are old photos of the inn under Landrake-in the Francis Frith collection of old photographs if you wish to look online.Dont confuse it though with the sportsmans inn at saltash which is in the high street.Perhaps your relative came here afterwards when mine were no longer the tenants.I have been down to the inn and stayed behind in the caravan and static homes site on the land once owned by the inn.After the Steeds left I believe the inn was taken over by a Major.[they called him the mad major]There was also a water wheel and blacksmithy.I have a book with the old history of saltash and the Inn including written passages of its link with smugglers and about the tough landlady who once ran it before my william steed.Hope all this interests you and you find your ancestor.Please contact me if you wish for any help.Regards.Rosalind Steed.
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Hi Rosalind,
Thank you for your contribution to my research. How interesting that your ancestors had the Sportsman's Arms before mine did.
In 1881 Census, my great grandmother Ann Bickle (nee Ellacott) was with her first husband, Samuel Bickle who was licenced victualler at Notter Bridge. Samuel died in 1882. Ann then ran the pub for two years alone before marrying John Kempthorne (my great grandfather) in 1884 at St Stephens by Saltash church. They were running the Notter Bridge Inn at the time of the 1891 census. My grandfather, William Kempthorne had been born there in 1887. They then sold the Inn and moved in to Saltash.
Interestingly, John Kempthorne was a rogue. Ann had a strong relationship with her first husband Samuel Bickle and was eventually buried with him. John Kempthorne, her second husband and my ancestor, had changed his name after leaving the Marines. He was born Mark Kempthorne in East Newlyn. He had a bit of a record in the marines, and clearly a bit of a drinking problem. He reinvented himself as John Kempthorne and probably created a story to go with it! He was clearly a big drinker, which I think led to Ann selling up and moving to Saltash.
I have visited the Sportsman's Arms (in 2012) with two other descendants of Ann and John/Mark. We had a meal there and a good chat with the current (then) owners. My American cousin gave them some photos of the pub from the era when our ancestors were there. It is a lovely (if somewhat cold and damp) location.
William's daughter, May Kempthorne (born Saltash) was my mother. I was born in Cargreen, Cornwall in 1952 to May and Frank Luke. I now live in Tasmania, Australia.
Thanks again, it is lovely to hear from someone else who has ancestors who ran the Notter Bridge Inn/Sportsman's Arms.
Kind regards,
Vivienne